Rahul Gandhi to leave for Amethi after attending Rafale debate in Lok Sabha

The political atmosphere in Amethi is expected to be surcharged on Friday as the Congress president and Union Minister Smriti Irani are scheduled to visit the town at the same time

Congress president Rahul Gandhi deferred his tour timings for Amethi on Friday due to the ongoing Rafale discussion in the Parliament.

Gandhi will leave for Amethi after the Parliament session and reach Fursatganj in the evening, as opposed to the earlier schedule.

The political atmosphere in Amethi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Rahul Gandhi, is expected to be surcharged today as the Congress president and Union Minister Smriti Irani are scheduled to visit the town at the same time.

During his visit, Rahul will meet the people of his constituency, attend public and party reception events, hold 'corner meetings' and attend a function of newly appointed party spokespersons. He will be travelling to Salon Nagar, Pardeshpur, Naseerabad, Paraiya Namaskar, and Gauriganj on January 4 before reaching Amethi in the night.

On January 5, after spending some time in Amethi, Rahul will travel to Musafirkhana tehsil, Jagdishpur and Tiloyi, where he will meet the family members of veteran Congress leader Shiv Pratap Singh, who died last week after a prolonged illness, before reaching Lucknow to catch a flight back to Delhi.

Irani, on the other hand, will be attending a programme organised by Raghav Sewa Sansthan, during which blankets and financial assistance will be distributed to poor persons and a foundation stone for a school will be laid.

The two leaders have been at loggerheads over the development of Amethi, with Irani maintaining that the constituency had suffered despite the Gandhi family representing it in the Lok Sabha for decades.

Rahul, a Member of Parliament (MP) from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, had defeated Bharatiya Janata Party's candidate Smriti Irani from this Lok Sabha seat in the 2014 elections. Irani is expected to contest from the Amethi seat once again in the 2019 polls for which she has been making frequent trips to muster support.

Though the two leaders have visited the area several times in the last five years, this is the first time they will be in Amethi together at the same time.